


Front Lines

by hailtherandom



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Angst, Army, Backstory, British Military, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Military, Minor Character Death, PTSD, Panic Attacks, Recovery, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailtherandom/pseuds/hailtherandom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A character study on Martin Crieff, if Martin had gone into the military before getting his pilot's license and going to work for MJN. Pre-canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Front Lines

1995

"Martin, dear, you've got a letter from Oxford Aviation Academy."

Martin looks up, half hopefully. "Is it a big envelope?"

"No, I don't think so…" his mother calls back. "It looks rather thin, actually."

Martin feels his heart sink in his chest and sighs. "Alright, bring it here."

Wendy appears in the doorway of his room, a small envelope clutched in her hand. "Do you think it's good news?"

"I– it might be, Mum, I don't know," Martin sighs. He takes the envelope and tears the side open and a single sheet of printed paper falls out.

_Dear Mr. Crieff,_

_We regret to inform you that you have been rejected from the Oxford Aviation Academy. There were many strong applicants and we simply cannot give them all interviews. We wish you the best of luck in the future–_

Martin reads the letter over a few times, then grinds his teeth together, crumples the letter up, and throws it in the direction of the trash can. His mother leans against the doorframe, looking worried. "Did you…?"

"Not this time, no," Martin says shortly.

"Oh Martin, love. It's alright," Wendy says. She leans forwards a little bit and runs one hand through his hair. Martin sighs again, shakily. "One of them's bound to accept you eventually."

"I've already been rejected from five flying schools," Martin shoots back. "I'm running out of places to apply to."

"You'll figure something out, Martin. You always do." Wendy turns to leave, one hand on the door. "I'm making dinner in an hour, do you have a preference?"

"Whatever you and Dad want is fine. Just don't give me Caitlin's, she's still doing that vegan thing."

"Of course, love." Wendy shuts the door gently behind her. Martin leans against his bed, holding his head in one hand. Five rejections now, including this one, no matter how many times he studies borrowed flight textbooks and plane reports and manual after manual. He picks up a copy of a Bowing 737 diagram and throws it across the room.

He comes out for dinner two hours later and neither he nor Wendy say anything to Martin's dad.

 

1997

The letter's not announced this time. It just sits on the table with the rest of the mail that Cat brought in when she left for work. Martin finds it when he's looking for some paperclips. His whole body goes cold for a second as he picks up the envelope and slips the fold open.

_Dear Mr. Crieff,_

_We regret to inform you that you have not passed your Commercial Pilot's License exam. Your scores indicate that you–_

Martin tears the letter in half and throws it in the bin as he passes. He locks himself in the bathroom, sits in a scalding shower until his skin is burnt red and numb from the water pressure. He hears people moving around outside the bathroom and someone knocks softly a few times, but he ignores them and they go away soon enough.

He tosses himself onto the couch where his dad is watching cricket. His skin is raw and his hair still drips down his bare back and into the waistband of his pyjama trousers. His dad mutes the television for a second and says, "say, Martin, don't you get your CPL results soon?"

"Any day now, Dad."

"Well, let me know when you do."

The volume goes back on.

 

1998

"Martin, you can't keep doing this!"

"It's all I've ever wanted to do, Dad!"

His father slams the paper on the table. Martin catches a flash of words - _regret to inform you that_ \- before he turns back to his father, staring defiantly.

"This is the third time you've failed this exam," his father says. "You can't keep on like this. You're wasting all of your money on these tests and classes and what've you got to show for it?"

"I just want to follow my dreams, Dad. Mum's helping!"

"Of course she is!" his father roars, exasperated. "She's your mother, she just wants you to be happy."

Martin fights to keep his gaze level. "And what do you want?"

His father sighs. "I just want what's best for you, Martin. And it's about time that you start learning that those aren't necessarily the same thing."

He turns on his heel and leaves, slamming the kitchen door behind him. Martin closes his eyes and tries to calm his breathing down until he can get out of the kitchen without punching anything.

The next day he submits his application for a CPL test.

Six months later, he fails again and throws one of his textbooks out the window.

 

March, 2000

He folds his hands in his lap and sits up straighter when the recruitment officer comes into the office. The man exudes authority - Martin can practically taste it - and his boots echo loudly in the silence. He takes a seat across from Martin, all perfect posture and calmness. Martin feels himself shrink back in his chair.

"Mr. Crieff, right?" Martin nods. "I'm Lieutenant Brian Carter. You can call me Brian, if you like."

"Yes, sir," Martin says immediately without thinking.

Carter chuckles. "So it says in your application that you want to enlist in the Royal Air Force, is that right?"

"Yes, sir," Martin says again.

"Good, very good. And why do you want to join the RAF?"

"I really like flying, sir, and I want to fly planes for a living," Martin answers honestly. "And I feel like the best place for me to do that would be in service to my country."

Carter beams at him. "As good a reason as any, son. Well, as you know, the RAF only likes to take the best. There'll be tests, pretty difficult ones. Are you ready for that?"

"Yes, sure, I think I am," Martin replies. "I've studied flying since I was eighteen, I trust my knowledge pretty well."

"Where've you been hiding for the past six years then?" Carter jokes. Martin laughs nervously. "Well, we'll get you signed up for some exams at the testing center, and if you know as much as you say you do, then we'll get you enlisted as soon as we can."

Martin grins in spite of himself. "Thank you, sir."

"My pleasure, Mr. Crieff." Carter shakes his hand and heads out of the office. Martin takes a deep breath, then goes down to the front desk to make his appointments.

 

July, 2000

Martin sits in a chair, slumping with exhaustion this time from the flight simulation test he had just taken. He can hear quiet murmurs behind the door, but doesn't even try to listen in. He'll find out eventually.

After about ten minutes, his test proctors file out of the door. They cast glances at him and nod shortly, but no one speaks to him until the last woman to leave, who just says, "we'll give you a call and let you know, Mr. Crieff."

Five days later, he's having lunch before work in the sitting room when the phone rings. He picks it up as he takes a bite of the sandwich. "Hello?"

"Is this Mr. Martin Crieff?"

"Mhm. Who's speaking?"

"This is Lieutenant Carter from the Royal Air Forces recruitment office."

Martin chokes on his bite of sandwich. He hurriedly swallows as fast as he can around coughing, then says, "yes, hello, sorry, yes?"

Carter seems unfazed. "We've run through your test scores and we've found some interesting results," he says. "Your written tests were very well done, but we just don't think you have the aptitude to join the RAF."

Martin feels his eyes burn a little and he braces his free hand against the coffee table. "My written tests…?"

"You scored well above average on some of them, but there were a few exams that you did not demonstrate potential up to the level we require," Carter explains. "You have promise in the military, son, but you're not what the RAF is looking for right now."

"Military potential?" Martin repeats.

"We can always use more bodies, Martin, and you've shown a remarkable ability to follow and interpret orders to the letter."

"Lucky me," Martin mutters.

"If you decide to enlist in the army, we can guarantee you a place," Carter says. "It's your call, son. You can serve your country this way too."

"I…" Martin closes his eyes and rolls his neck. "I'll think about it."

"Good lad. Give me a call when you decide." Carter says goodbye and hangs up, and Martin tries to imagine putting on fatigues and crawling through the wreckage of Kosovo and Bosnia.

 

August, 2000

Martin calls Barclays a few days after Carter calls and requests his statement early this quarter. The envelope comes thicker than usual - added information that Martin had asked for, things like credit card summaries and withdrawal records - and he grabs a notebook and some pens before he opens it. Sheet after sheet of rows of numbers falls out into his lap and Martin takes a deep breath and starts adding things up.

The conclusion he comes to after several hours - that _I don't have very much money left_ \- isn't a surprise.

Martin digs out old receipts from his CPL exams and his plane rentals and instruction fees and tallies everything up. The numbers keep piling higher and higher and Martin feels his stomach sink lower and lower and the total rises past five thousand pounds, past six thousand, past seven thousand… 

Then he pulls out the paperwork that Carter gave him, and over ten thousand pounds a year, that's not too bad. Way better than his current job, taking night shifts wherever he can. Martin does calculations in his head and figures out that he could take his CPL exam twice over on an army wage, and still have a bit left over. 

He sleeps on it, literally gets so tired that he shoves papers under his pillow and falls back onto them and closes his eyes and sees pound signs imprinted on the insides of his eyelids. He dreams about violent gunshots coming from the tail end of the last plane he practiced in, when he'd barely been allowed to land and he knew because he saw the instructor's hands twitching on his knees. They fire behind him, in the galley and the cabin and tear holes in the walls and Martin thinks vaguely that he'll have to pay to fix them, but his bank account's emptied out and somehow that's even more alarming.

He keeps the papers folded up under his pillow, then under his bed, every night for a week, pulls them out every night before he turns out the lights and studies the numbers and tells himself over and over that the army's not the best option he has right now and never believes it. 

Seven days in and the papers end up in the trash.

Eight days in and they end up in his father's hand.

 

September, 2000

He sits straight up in the chair in Carter's office, fingers fidgeting against the wood of the chair arms. His father sits next to him - moral support, he had said, but Martin suspects that it's to make sure he doesn't chicken out and run for it before the contracts are signed. He'd been so happy when he'd found the folder of recruitment papers, Martin remembers. So proud, and so pleased that it didn't have anything to so with flying that Martin doesn't even think about mentioning his failed RAF exams. 

At Martin's request, Carter is the one who meets them. Martin freezes in his chair when he comes in, but his father rises and shakes Carter's hand and makes some joke that Martin suspects he'd have to be older than twenty-five years old to get.

"Now then, Martin," Carter says, finally taking a seat behind his desk. "You've decided to join the army after all, then?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, as I say, if you want to enlist, there's definitely a place for you. Are you sure that this is what you want to do?"

Martin glances over to his father, who squeezes his forearm reassuringly. "Yes, sir, it is."

"Good lad." Carter spins around in his chair and pulls a folder out of some file cases behind his desk. "We'll just go through all of these and have you sign then and then you'll be all set!"

Martin sits quietly as Carter works his way through the folder, explaining each page down to the fine print. He nods when it's expected of him and initials all the underlines and finishes off with a scratchy signature that signs away the next four years of his life, at the very least. 

When he turns the final sheet of paper over, Carter grins and shakes Martin's hand and Martin's father claps him too hard on the back and Martin's entire body feels numb and floaty and he can't quite believe that the sheet of paper that Carter is tucking away is his solid, flightless future.

 

January, 2001

They give him three months to get everything in order, and then he ships out to the countryside for a month-long training session. Martin's read up on military protocol and army etiquette, so he stands at attention with his hand flat against his forehead in a respectful salute. His fatigues feel just a hair too big for him, but he can't tell if the size is one size too large or if the camouflage surrounding him from every side is just bleeding into his mind already.

There are briefings, so many briefings, for hours a day and days a week until Martin sees slideshows every time he closes his eyes to sleep.

There's physical training, too, and that's the part that Martin was worried about the most. He's not _small_ , certainly, but he's never been terribly fit or athletic and he feels the exhaustion building halfway through the first mile they all run together in mud-splattered shirts and shorts. But most of the people around him look to be in the same situation, so they all gasp for breath together and it feels like certain kinship.

The days bleed into each other, one after another, until everything is pushups and situps and miles and miles of dirt and gravel roads and a near callous on his forehead from learning to show respect.

 

11 September, 2001

He's coming off of lunch at the shop he's working at part time when he hears someone screaming inside one of the flats on the way back. Martin raises his eyebrows and hunches his shoulders and keeps walking, until he hears shouting coming from his other side and the buildings on both sides of the road sound like they are descending into chaos behind their locked doors.

When he gets back to the shop just before two, it's nearly empty, and the few people there look shaken and worried. Martin frowns as he ties his apron around his waist and heads into the employee break room to drop off his coat in his locker, but inside are half a dozen people, including his manager, all gathered around a small television that sits in the corner. One looks up at Martin as he enters and silently motions for him to come over.

There is chaos on the screen, and it takes Martin a moment to realize that it's not a film, it's a news broadcast, and there is a building crumbling and on fire and surrounded by people running from it.

"Where is this?" Martin breathes.

"New York," someone replies, but Martin doesn't catch who. Suddenly the shouting makes sense and three thousand miles away, a plane tears through concrete and steel and glass and another building bursts into flame.

He views the whole thing with a sort of detached horror. Two more planes crash, in Virginia and Pennsylvania, and then the two towers collapse in on themselves and hundreds of people, maybe even thousands, are dead and Martin feels numb watching it and it's not even his country that's being torn apart.

"There'll be a war on, then," one of the shop workers says fearfully. "No way the States wouldn't strike back after this."

"They don't even know who it is," another hisses back. "It's their own planes, could be their own pilots, you don't know."

The flow of hushed conversation is lost on Martin; the words just echo around in his head, _'there'll be a war on'_ , and for God's sake, he's only twenty-five and he's not old enough for there to be a war on when he has to go be in it.

They go back to work for a couple of hours and close up at six, just as they always do, but there are hardly any people that they have to cater to so they wait and count the minutes of each hour until they can go home and call friends and family and find out what is going on.

Martin hardly remembers those few hours.

He does remember coming home with a Tesco bag clutched in his hand and he tries to soothe the tear tracks from his mother's face by saying, "I picked up chicken for dinner," and they eat it together, silently, in front of the television as the death toll keeps rising, keeps rising. His father gets home, and then Cat comes by, and they all sit and _watch_ because there's nothing else to do.

It's five in the afternoon, stateside, when they all decide to go to sleep. Martin gives Cat his bed for the night and she sneers a little at the wrinkled sheets but she kisses him on the cheek when he hugs her good night because she knows what they're all refusing to say out loud.

He curls up on the sitting room couch, staring at the blank screen for exactly twenty-seven minutes before he gives in and turns the television on with low volume. It's just starting to get dark in New York City, but the news coverage shows no sign of stopping. He lines closer and closer until he's sitting in front of the television, a mere foot from the pixels, and Martin feels panic start to rise inside his chest.

He didn't get a call from his unit leader today, but he knows it's coming soon, and he knows, from what seems like thousands of hours of powerpoints, that this is NATO and this is the UN and this is the shattering of any hope that Martin had of getting through his four years intact.

He doesn't get up when BBC One switches over to national news, and Cat finds him like that in the morning, still sitting up with his head on his knees and snoring gently underneath the flickering lights of the 8 AM news. But she knows what happened and she knows he's afraid so she covers him in blankets instead of words and lets him sleep. 

The next two weeks are a blur, but there's a war on now and they all ready themselves for a lot of this sort of thing. Martin's unit leaver finally calls, in deep, grave tones, and he says the things that Martin knows he has to say.

They're going to Afghanistan, says President Bush, and Martin knows he's not far behind.

 

March, 2002

He wasn't called up right away, and that saved him for a quarter of a year, but in January the letter comes, that he's got two months to wrap things up at home and then he's shipping out.

In those two months, Martin quits his job at Tesco and opens up a storage unit downtown to move all his stuff into, to make sure his parents don't have to deal with it. Wendy offers to pay for it, but Martin's got double wages from the last year and his parents have put him up without complaint, so he just links it up to his bank account and lets it be.

On the twenty-fourth of March, his parents drive him down to London Heathrow. His father says nothing during the drive and his mother cries and he does a little bit of both. No one says anything meaningful, just tries to fill the silence by casually mentioning cricket or football scores or the fucking weather and Martin wants to coldly ask how hot his father thinks the weather will be in Afghanistan, but his mother's just stopped crying and he doesn't want to make her start again.

And then the airport springs up in front of them, crawling with men in the same fatigues that Martin bears, and Martin is striding up with squared shoulders and a duffel bad at his hip and solemn parents in tow, and for a second it feels like the world bends to him instead of the other war around. He catches sight of his unit leader, who offers him his boarding pass with a nod and a quiet word of luck. Martin nods back and pockets the ticket, then turns back to his parents. His mother is crying again, and his father is trying not to, to the point that he looks furious with himself, just for a moment, for ever insisting that Martin sign the contract.

"I'll write," Martin offers weakly. "And call, when I can."

"Oh, Martin." His mother rushes forward to hug him and Martin rubs her back as she cries. "Do be careful, alright?" she murmurs into his shoulder.

"Of course, Mum. I'll be fine."

She nods and releases him and steps back and Martin's father takes her place, and any other time, Martin would be surprised that he gets a hug rather than a handshake, but not now. Not today.

When his father pulls back, he looks like he wants to say something, but in the end he just claps Martin on the shoulder, nods once, and mutters, "give 'em hell, son."

"Thanks, Dad." Someone yells something behind him, and the other soldiers begin hurrying toward their respective gates. Martin hitches his duffel bag strap up higher on his shoulder. "That's me."

Neither of them cry as he turns and starts to walk away - at least, not that he sees. He hands the airport attendant his boarding pass and his passport and looks back one more time to commit the image of his parents, standing still and together, to memory. Then he gets his passes back and steps through a long maze of camouflage into a seat on a plane that takes off as soon as all of the soldiers are buckled in, and Martin thinks as he watches England disappear underneath him that this may be the last time he ever gets to fly.

 

17 August 2003

There's creeping silence settling over their hunched backs, though that could just be Martin's helmet padding muffling everything that isn't his heartbeat. It's six of them, just six - this was _supposed_ to be a routine security check of the town they're occupying right now. But then Gaz saw a strange, old-looking car and they had to investigate so they sent him and Jack out to check and they'd rushed back hissing "it's fuckin' rigged!"

So they're hunched behind a rundown shack off in the borders of Balkh and Gaz is muttering into his radio, that they want non-emergency backup. The rest of them are watching the car, waiting for someone to show up or for something to spark or anything out of the ordinary.

Nothing happens.

Backup promises around twenty minutes, and then twenty turns to thirty and thirty turns to anxious pacing. Steve walks back and forth between the two little clumps of soldiers, three on one side and two on the other. After a long silence, he stops and looks up and says, "let's just take care of it now."

He's met with a chorus of blank stares until Dave raises his eyebrows and says, " _what?_ "

"Let's just go and disable it," Steve says. "Take it out of the town, it'll be outside our jurisdiction and outside the danger zone and then we can get out of here."

"Are you fucking _insane?_ " Gaz demands.

"Come on, it'll be fine."

Martin rises from his crouching position and stalks forward to Steve. "Backup's coming, Steve. It'll be here any moment."

"And we'll have taken care of it when they get here!" Steve replies.

"Steve, just follow the protocol," Martin presses. "Just go by the books, wait for the rest of the unit."

"The enemy doesn't follow books, mate. For Christ's sake, I'll do it if you're too much of a ponce," Steve spits back. He makes a move toward the car and martin grabs at his arm. Steve jerks his head up and wrenches his arm away. "Get the fuck off of me, Crieff."

Martin glowers. "You're going to kill yourself, Carlsberg. You're going to die if you do this."

"How?" Steve demands. "It isn't rigged to the underside, or the driver's side, so starting the car won't set it off. So get back and let me deal with this, if you're too much of a pussy."

He shoves Martin back hard against the wall and two people lunge for Steve, but he shoves them away and takes off toward the car. They rush after him, and Martin and the other two are close behind.

"I'll show you cocks, it's fine," Steve calls back to the rest of his unit. He reaches over and opens the car door, and in the split second that it takes for his fingers to pull at the plastic, everything slows down.

Gaz and Mikey reach the boot of the car.

Jack and Dave rush in front of Martin.

Steve looks up triumphantly.

Martin's eyes widen and he starts to pedal backwards as fast as possible.

Something sparks.

And then all at once time is normal and speeding and there's a violent cracking noise that catches the breath in all of their chests, and a flash of sheer white that might be the force or might be the fire, because it _was_ rigged to the driver's side, and as soon as Steve pulls the door open an inch, the bomb ignites and there's one single echo of a shout before the car tears itself apart and burning metal throws itself in every direction. Martin feels someone - Jack or Dave, he can't tell, his eyes are all but heat-sealed shut - slam into him and his face is buried in rough fabric as heat rushes across them. He can vaguely feel sharp pain in his arms, like it's off in the distance of his mind, but the heat is unimaginable and suffocating and he bites into the canvas of the fatigues that are keeping his lungs from burning inside out and digs his nails into the rocky terrain beneath him and thinks, _I am going to die here_.

It rouses strangely little emotion in him.

The onslaught of sound is gone and just the heat is left, still suffocating and still all consuming, and Martin can't hear anything at all anymore. The backup should be here soon, but the backup should have been here twenty minutes ago and _Christ_ if they'd just let the backup show up, if they'd just followed orders…

The body above him isn't moving, and Martin tries to reach up to push him off, but his arms aren't cooperating. He tries again and feels the ragged shift of bone beneath skin and the white-hot burn of skin punctures and it feels like all of the heat drains out of his body, all at once, because _what if he's stuck here_.

He shouts something and thinks he feels a bit of squirming on top of him, but he can't hear his own voice or trust his own skin right now. His head's locked in place, eyes still closed because he can't open them, and his arms aren't cooperating for whatever reason and _there's_ the panic that he was waiting for, ice cold panic.

_If only we'd just followed orders._

Martin starts to feel dizzy, can't fight off the constriction around his chest, can't take a breath deep enough to feel his oxygen-starved brain, and he slowly looses the fight with consciousness breathing out the thought that this is where everything ends, on the ground, in the desert, in the dust.

 

19 August, 2003

It's the steady beep that wakes him up more than anything. He's got a splitting headache, and a splitting rest-of-the-body ache to match, but the steady beep is what drags him up, stabbing through his mind every second or so. He groans and tries to rub the sleep from his eyes, but his arms are heavy and still not really cooperating, tucked under fairly comfortable sheets. 

Wait.

Comfortable sheets.

Martin forces his eyes open a tiny bit and the ceiling is such a pale blue that it's almost white, and his barracks have a wooden roof, so he's not there, so he must be–

His eyes snap open wide and his chest suddenly feels like it's being crushed and he absolutely _cannot breathe, there's something over his face and he grits his teeth together and tries to inhale and burns himself inside out–_

There are hands on him, one on his shoulder and one on his arm and he can't raise his hands to defend himself so he does all he can think to do and yells.

Over the sound of his own pulse and screaming, he hears something murmured above his head, something like, "put him back under," and then something burns in a straight line up his arm and everything grows hazy again and then it's black. Merciful, quiet black.

 

20 August, 2003

He wakes up, if you can call it waking up, to sunlight pooling on his face. He turns his head away into shadow and his body is too weak to fend the light off.

There is frantic beeping off to his right.

He sleeps again.

 

22 August, 2003

Martin pretends to be asleep as David Goodman is pronounced dead at fourteen hundred fifty-three hours. He tastes dust in his mouth.

 

25 August, 2003

He flexes his arms, turning them this way and that, examining the bandages and the splint. His left arm is mostly immobile, from all the tape they've put on it. One of the nurses said that the bone was shattered, another one that there was shrapnel straight through his skin, another that he should go back to sleep, love, it's nearly two in the morning. The other is wrapped tightly, but he can move it alright, if he ignores the pain in his freshly un-dislocated shoulder. He flexes his fingers in front of his face and they move as the should, and brown-red flecks of scabbed over cuts move with them.

The nurses tell him to lie back down and eat his dinner so he does.

His head hurts.

 

29 August, 2003

There's nerve damage, but from what they can tell, most of it won't be permanent and none of it is extensive. Martin feels numb all the way through and asks them if they're sure about that last point.

 

31 August, 2003

They let him try to walk around. The bruises on his knees are proof that they shouldn't have just yet.

 

3 September, 2003

One of his unit members - his name is John McKean and he had the bed two over and one down from Martin in the barracks and snored only when he slept on his back - comes to visit. Martin offers up a halfhearted smile and John returns one of exactly the same effort and he sits on Martin's bed instead of in the chair next to it. Martin likes that.

They don't say anything for a good while, and then Martin rasps, "how many?"

John looks away. "Martin, mate–"

"How many?" Martin repeats.

John sighs. "All of 'em, save you and Jack."

Martin feels his eyes burn and he blinks them hard.

"Dave-o made it through the blast, but after a few days–"

"I know, I was awake for that one."

"Sorry." And he sounds like he sincerely is. He puts one hand on Martin's knee and Martin puts his hand on John's and it's sort of comforting. Sort of.

"Steve? Gaz and Mikey?"

John shakes his head. "Torn apart by the time we got there. It was fuckin' awful, like something out of a movie."

Martin shudders a little bit, involuntarily. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Blood everywhere and that." John twists his wrist a little and squeezes Martin's  hand. The corner of Martin's mouth twitches up. "But you should wait to talk about it, mate."

Martin is too tired to argue, so he just nods. "What about Jack?"

"He made it," John says, a bit more energetically. "Chest was ripped to shreds when they got to him but they stopped the bleeding, and his body's more thread than skin right now but they reckon he'll be alright."

Martin's stomach twists painfully. "Is he… awake yet?"

"Yeah, he is. Couple of us went to see him a few days ago. He's in pain, but he's doing alright."

"I know the feeling," Martin mumbles.

They exchange quiet small talk for a little while more, about the unit and John's routine inspection of another part of Balkh and even what they're serving for dinner today, and then Martin feels tired so John leaves him to get some rest and promises he'll be back soon.

He rolls his head to the side and falls asleep to the view of Dave's empty bed.

 

15 September, 2003

They let him sleep on his stomach for the first time, since his ribs are mostly healed up and Martin has always slept better on his stomach.

He wanders around the small hospital and watches the sand blow outside through the bulletproof glass.

He eats his meals quietly and quickly whenever he is told to.

He asks when he will be allowed to leave, and is never afforded an answer.

 

29 September, 2003

John brings him a thick envelope postmarked from home. It's from Cat, of all people, and Martin slits the envelope open cautiously. Nine sheets of paper slide out into his lap.

Four of them are newspaper cuttings, from different newspapers. Death announcements of the four men in his unit.

The next four are funeral programs. They bear bright, smiling pictures of the men who he rarely saw smile, and a list of family he heard all about who spoke about them but didn't really know them in their last couple of years.

And the last slip of paper is plain and white, in Cat's messy scrawl. _Thought you might want these. -C_

It's the first time Martin's cried in months, and he makes good use of it.

 

8 October, 2003

He pities the nurse on duty at night, he really does. She's the one who's by his bedside in a flash when he wakes up screaming with his arms on fire and steel driven through his body, pinning him to the ground like some sort of military-mandated crucifix. 

Her name is Maggie, he thinks. 

 

9 October, 2003

Her name is definitely Maggie.

 

9 October, 2003 (later that day)

And her last name is Spire.

 

19 October, 2003

They say he's healed enough to be released, that his arm has set fine and the nerve damage is fading, just like they said it would, and the cuts and gashes have scarred into pale tissue that feels too numb and still too sensitive when he touches it. He's physically fit and, with some effort, would be able to go back into the field.

He doesn't understand why he's still kept here.

 

21 October, 2003

He wakes up with his wrists strapped to the sides of his bed because, according to the nurses, he'd been thrashing and screaming in his sleep and they couldn't wake him up.

He understands now.

 

26 October, 2003

He hasn't slept in fifty-eight hours now, and he begs for a sedative. The nurses shake their heads sadly, make their excuses, and Martin stares at the ceiling and watches the shadows ride across the piss poor stand-in for a night sky.

 

30 October, 2003

Jack leaves.

He comes to say goodbye to Martin - he's going on leave for a few weeks, and then coming back and joining up with the rest of the unit. Martin nods and smiles like he should and wishes Jack luck and neither of them talk about why Martin's still here and Jack gets to leave.

He claps Martin's shoulder - _like his dad used to_ \- then gets up and zips up his jacket and leaves with a nurse. Martin sinks back against his pillow. He's been here two and a half months. He wants to leave too.

 

31 October, 2003

Not today.

 

1 November, 2003

Not today, either.

 

5 November, 2003

There's a battle today, near where the hospital is located. Martin hears the bang of the rifles and the shout of the targets and the crack of bullets striking concrete.

He wipes cold sweat from his forehead and grips the edges of the bed.

He wonders if they planned a Guy Fawkes Day fight.

He wouldn't put it past them.

 

6 November, 2003

A nurse tells him there were thirteen casualties in the battle last night.

Martin laughs harder than he perhaps should.

 

14 November, 2003

He's allowed to go visit his unit for a little while. The barracks are about twenty minutes into Balkh, and Martin wraps up in a coat and a blanket in the passenger's seat as some off-duty soldier drives him out.

They're all subdued when he sees them. He knows they can be loud, can by physical, and punch each other in the chest and laugh about it and go back to playing cards, but today they're quiet and they touch his back carefully instead of slapping it. Martin talks to most of them, and has the same conversations over and over about how he's doing and how the healing process is going and if hospital food is any better than the kind they usually get.

Martin slips off his jacket and tugs up his sleeves and they all marvel at the patchwork of stitches and scar tissue that is his forearms. One of them asks to touch it, and Martin acquiesces, though he feels a strange, cold panic bubbling in his stomach as fingers trace over the twisted scar tissue of a particularly deep shrapnel gouge.

His unit leader takes him aside, right before he leaves, and quietly asks if he'll ever be coming back.

Martin just shrugs helplessly. "They're not even letting me out of the infirmary, sir. I don't think they'd want to let me back into the field."

His unit leader sighs. "I know, Martin, I just don't want to lose you as a soldier. But you do what you need to, alright?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."

Then he's whisked out of the barracks and back into the hospital and the blue pulses down at him.

 

28 November, 2003

He looks out the window at the night sky and wonders how the last month slipped past him.

 

4 December, 2003

"Hello, Mr. Crieff? We'd like to talk to you about your current contract."

 

4 December, 2003 (later that day)

"They said I was broken."

"They didn't say you were broken."

"That's what they meant."

"You're not broken."

 

4 December, 2003 (that night)

"What if I am, though?"

 

5 December, 2003 (early that morning)

"You're still alive, aren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Then you're not broken."

 

5 December, 2003 (that afternoon)

"Tell us about your nightmares, Mr. Crieff."

"An honorable discharge is the safest option for you right now, Mr. Crieff."

"You've done a great service to your country, Mr. Crieff."

 

5 December, 2003 (that night)

"They can't keep him here. He's not going to get better as fast as they want."

"He's stronger than you think."

"Well his nightmares are stronger than he is right now. Can't have that in the field."

 

"I can hear you, you know."

 

7 December, 2003

"Are there benefits after you get discharged?"

"All your medical expenses will be covered, certainly."

"We live in England, you twat."

 

8 December, 2003

"If you'll just sign here…"

"Alright."

"Thank you, Mr. Crieff. We'll have a seat on a plane for you with the Christmas holiday crew. We thank you for your service."

"You're welcome, sir."

 

16 December, 2003

It's not like he kept a particularly messy area - you can't afford to leave clothes lying around in barracks - but all of his belongings are packed into his duffel bag, tucked under his bed. Martin leans down and picks it up, brushing a little bit of dust off of the top. He's wearing his fatigues again, possibly for the last time. The hospital had given him gowns and, later, scrubs to wear, when he wasn't allowed to go back for his own clothes, and the scratchy material of his uniform pants chafes against the scar tissue on his legs.

He catches sight of himself in a mirror on the way out of the bathroom and barely spares the man in the glass a second glance. He's barely recognizable anyway.

Only half his unit is going home on this Christmas holiday flight, so he sits with them and makes quiet jokes when he can, but for the most part prefers to stay quiet as possible. 

He watches the ground disappear underneath the plane's wing and misses missing flying.

Caring is so hard now.

 

16 December, 2003 (again)

Martin sits awake for the entire eleven hours they're in the air. Soldiers around him drop off one by one, until most of them are asleep and the few that aren't are reading or playing cards or something quiet on their own, so he just watches Europe run by him until suddenly Europe is a runway and they're back home and it's grey and cold and cloudy, just like home should be.

Martin gets off the plane with shaking legs and takes a breath and the air is cool and not full of dust like Balkh was every single day. Soldiers move around him so he follows them out and they emerge from the gate to cheering and clapping and crying and all around him, men run to their families and into the arms of their partners and there's probably a proposal going on somewhere, from the scream that echoes around the airport, and Martin just keeps trudging through with his duffel bag on his shoulder until he finally sees his parents at the back of the crowd.

His father is hard faced and his mother looks well-worn and they all just look at each other for a moment, taking in the differences, and then Martin drops his bag and his mother rushes up to him and he hugs her as tight has he can as his skin stretches painfully and he winces but it's okay, really, because it's his mother, and she's here, for the first time in almost two years, and Martin always wondered why soldiers broke down crying in the airport when they landed back home but now he knows.

Now he knows that he _didn't_ die in a desert in Afghanistan and he _didn't_ fly for the last time that day in March and he _wasn't_ another death statistic to report on the news to silent families across the country.

He made it back.

Barely.

 

25 December, 2003

He can't remember ever saying grace as a child, sitting around the dinner table, but his mother insists on it, so she leads with her hands folded in his father's and Simon's and they all mumble, "amen," and begin to eat. Martin considers protesting that they're not religious, never have been, but his mother seemed to smile a little when they all let her pray, so he stays silent.

Dinner is mostly quiet, and the conversation is strangely hushed. Martin can't imagine that it's any sort of good conversation, and he can't even hear the replies a quarter of the time when Cat or Martin's father murmurs something unintelligible that everyone else seems to pick up on right away.

After the first couple of nights, his family stopped asking him about his time in Balkh. Martin answered their questions on the first day, shortly and vaguely, and then said he was going back to bed and took his coffee with him to lie on his side facing the wall and not drink it. His father pushed a little more, until Wendy took him aside and said a few quiet words and then the topic was never pursued again and Martin appreciates it like that.

They unwrap presents at night, under the sad little fake tree his parents must have bought last Christmas. It's calm. Quiet. Martin relaxes into the comfy armchair and stretches his arms and doesn't loathe the strange shift of scar tissue.

He gets clothes from his parents and some rather interesting-looking books from Caitlin and some sort of promise form Simon that he doesn't really pay attention to, and then all at once, he's exhausted. He doesn't make excuses, just says, "I'm going to bed," and everyone nods and doesn't ask him why.

He takes one of Cat's book with him and reads for a couple of hours. It's pretty good.

 

March, 2004

It doesn't take much, he comes to learn.

Sometimes it doesn't take anything at all.

And sometimes all it takes is Wendy slamming the door too loudly when she comes home.

The noise the door makes triggers something deep in Martin's mind, and when Wendy looks at him, she's fire and splintered metal and the panic shoots up Martin's spine so fast that he doesn't notice when he's screaming on his knees like he screamed on his back in the desert.

If there are hands on him (there are), then he doesn't feel them. If there are words in his ear, loud and frantic (there are), then he doesn't hear them. All he hears is that rush of heat and blood and it _won't fade, it won't stop, it goes on and on and on and it burns deep into his lungs and he can't breathe can't breathe can't breathe can'tbreathecan'tbreathe–_

He doesn't know when it all went dark, but he knows when it all comes back, because there's the beeping, and for one dreadful, panic-filled second, he's _sure_ that it's August and he's back in Balkh in a hospital bed with field nurses dumping sedatives into his system, but then the faces of his parents swim back into view and he slumps back into the bed.

"Martin? Love?" his mother says timidly.

Martin's eyes flicker toward her. He opens his mouth, but no sound comes out, so he just closes it and blinks slowly.

"You're in hospital, darling," Wendy says, resting one hand on Martin's knee, away from most of the scar tissue. "You've been here about six hours."

Only six? Martin almost snorts. Six hours is nothing compared to how long he spent in the infirmary. But he says none of that and just nods, because there's nothing else to do.

"A doctor's going to be in to talk to you later," Wendy continues. "He should be here soon. Is there anything we can do for you in the meantime?"

Martin shakes his head, and as he does, he catches a glimpse of his father, who looks more and more often like he wants to carve his own heart out as he watches his son wander listlessly around the house, buried in books and blankets.

A doctor does come, eventually, and she feeds Martin sips of water so that he can answer her questions. Martin croaks out answers as best he can and is given a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder for his troubles, and he almost, _almost_ rolls his eyes at that.

They keep him overnight to make sure he doesn't have another attack, and then the next day Cat picks him up on the way to work. She doesn't say much and he doesn't either, and all she says when she leaves is, "remember, Martin, you _are_ here," and for some reason, that strikes more of a chord than anything else.

 

August, 2004

Martin kneels, shuddering, in the bathtub in his new flat, water running over his back as he gasps for air.

Martin curls in on himself as much as possible, tucked into a corner of the chair, and buries his face in his knees.

Martin digs his fingers into the sheets and lets sobs wrack his body for the third time that week.

Martin forgets all of his coping mechanisms the second the panic starts creeping in, and it's making him sick. 

Sometimes it's triggered, through shouting or loud noises, or just certain little things that the men in his unit used to do; it drives Martin into panic, but everyone eventually learns to control it.

Sometimes it's not, though, and as the days of August creep by, they get more and more frequent until Martin has to spend hours a day in bed to avoid closing the bathroom door too loudly and setting himself off.

He gets a text, one afternoon, and it makes his blood run cold as ice.

From: Jack Marlowe 17/8/2004 15:53:07

RIP gaz daveo steve & mikey. missing them. miss you too.

Martin's chest constricts on itself because _how could he forget? How could he forget that it was today?_

The scar tissue on his arms stretches grotesquely and threatens to tear and Martin clamps his hands over the scars to hold them together and his head is getting lighter and lighter until there's that roaring sound again, roaring sound and heat, surrounding everything, and he can see the sitting room through closed eyes but he can also see the desert, sand littering the television and the books and the coffee table, the carpet run through with splintered metal.

His father finds him an hour later when he stops by to check on him, nails dug into forearms so tightly the the scars are reopening and blood runs down into pants.

He goes to the hospital again.

They recommend therapy.

 

November, 2004

He gets a call reminding him that his storage unit payment is due. Martin blinks back confusion before he reminds himself that he did, in fact, open a storage unit three years ago, and that he should probably go move his belongings out. 

He tucks the keys into his jacket and borrows his father's van for the day. His mother volunteers Cat to come help him, but Martin flinches a little at the idea of moving boxes with his sister all day and declines and says it's something he needs to do on his own. His mother has learned not to press things he needs to do on his own. 

He carries boxes back and forth for the better part of two hours, arms straining and shaking a little, and the van slowly gets fuller and fuller until nearly all of his old belongings are packed away in a meter by two trunk. Martin staggers out with the last box, an unmarked and unstable mass of cardboard, and nearly gets it into the trunk before the box splits down the side and books tumble out onto the pavement. Martin curses loudly and jumps back from the van to avoid them. He bends down to start gathering them up again, planning to just shove them in the back and then leave, but a diagram of a Bowing 737 catches his eye and it makes everything slow down. Martin drops down on one knee and carefully closes the book again and the printed title of one of his old aviation textbooks flashes in the half-sunlight. He opens another book, slightly scuffed from the fall, and his eyes scan over pages marked with red lines and sticky notes with commentary folded down on the sides and long sentences detailing exactly how combustion engines work highlighted in yellow and orange ink. Martin smiles a little bit and hefts all the textbooks into the passenger's seat, then carefully pulls out of the storage parking lot.

It takes him about ten minutes to drive to his attic flat and an hour to move all the boxes from the van inside, and another five to sort through everything and decide that, apart from his textbooks, some old books and clothes, and a box of odds and ends that all seem to have some sentimental value, he doesn't actually _want_ any of his old things, so his mother comes over and helps him pack it all up again and she takes it to a charity shop off of Farriers Way and he curls up in bed with a mug of tea and his first aviation textbook. He reads it like a story, from the first page to the last word, and it's thin, soft-cover and badly bound after being poured over for years, but it strikes something familiar in his brain and the farther he gets in, the more he remembers, and the more he remembers, the more he wants to pick up the next textbook, but it's nearly one in the morning and the lines of runway diagrams are beginning to blur, so he sets it aside and falls asleep almost immediately. 

He spends the entire next day curled up in bed, pouring over textbooks like the best novels of his childhood and it slowly brings everything back to before he failed his CPL for the fifth time, or the fourth, or the third, back when he still had hopes of becoming a pilot and lived in these books with a red pen and a notepad and a stubborn dream.

He emerges for dinner with a CPL study guide in one hand and doesn't bother to join in with the conversation, too lost in altimeter readings. One phrase, a fraction of a jibe from Cat, asking if he's trying to fail his CPL _yet again_ , makes it through to Martin's mind, and the sarcasm is stripped away until all that's left is _let's take the CPL again_.

Martin leaves without finishing his dinner and calls his old instructor.

Hourly rates have gone up since he left.

 

August, 2005

He feels the date creeping up on him like a physical presence, always lurking behind his shoulder, and he goes home for a while, just in case. In the week leading up to it, he can barely get out of bed, can barely talk to anyone without hyperventilating, can't even check his phone alone without panicking that someone else will call or message him reminding him that he almost died two years ago.

The actual day of the anniversary, he spends the first four hours of the day alternating between having a severe panic attack and trying to quiet himself so that he doesn't wake anyone up. The next four hours are spent curled up against Cat as she rubs his shoulders and stays away from his arms and doesn't say anything but doesn't leave him alone as he shakes and fails to stem the tears that keep popping out just when he thinks he has himself under control. At eight hundred hours, he takes a sleeping pill and passes out and at seventeen hundred twenty-nine hours he comes to in the middle of another panic attack and at eighteen hundred, Wendy brings him another sleeping pill and strokes his hair until he falls asleep again and wakes up at two in the morning the next day and breathes easily for the first time in nine days and reads through standard operating procedures until the sky goes light and then dark again.

A week later, he schedules a CPL exam for the sixth time.

 

November, 2005

He steps off the plane, shaking, but grinning. His proctor nods to him as he walks by, and Martin drives himself home, pulse pounding.

 

December, 2005

_Dear Mr. Crieff,_

_We regret to inform you that you have not passed your Commercial Pilot's License exam._

 

4 February, 2006

He gets the call during a job interview.

He feels his mobile buzzing in the pocket of his jacket, tucked next to him in the chair, and casually leans against it to quiet it while the interviewer drones on about pay scales and office policies. Martin nods when appropriate and laughs at the interviewer's jokes and tries not to let his eyes flicker to the clock every thirty seconds. 

(It's not a very interesting job, just an office position, filing things and taking messages and carrying papers from one floor to the other, but Martin desperately needs a job and is getting behind on his rent, so he's willing to take anything that doesn't send him into hysterics right now.)

The buzzing starts again and Martin jams his thigh hard against his jacket, covering the resulting thump with a cough and a joke about football, which the interviewer laughs too hard at and leans over to clap Martin on the arm for. Martin flinches, but the interviewer doesn't seem to notice because he's busy writing notes on a pad and the scratches of pen nib against paper cover the muffled sound of vibration against cheap polyester upholstery.

After another ten or so minutes, the interviewer rises, and Martin rises with him, and they shake hands with the assurance that Martin will be getting a call back soon, he just has to go over things with his boss, but it's looking good, my boy, looking good, and Martin buries the fact that he's thirty-one and no one's _boy_ and instead grins back and thanks the man and hurries out the door before he has to listen to another crack about West Bromwich Albion.

He pulls his phone out of his jacket pocket and sees two missed calls from his mother, plus a message from Cat.

From: Caitlin 4/2/2006 14:22:19

Come home now. Dad's in A&E.

Martin feels ice shoot down his body, and blinks at the phone a couple of times before he breaks into a run, out the door of the office building and to his old, beat-up, third hand car. He speeds his way out of Bracknell and into Wokingham, to the guests' car park at Wokingham Hospital because that's where they always go whenever anyone gets sick. He recognizes Simon's car on the way in, and that just makes his body feel even colder, because Cat still lives in Wokingham, not far from their parents' house, and she comes around often enough, but _Simon_. Simon works for the Council now and lives in a posh flat in London and only comes down for holidays and real, proper emergencies. Which means that this…

Martin finds a parking spot and parks over a line on one side but he doesn't really care, because one hand's pulling the keys out of the ignition and the other is dialing Cat's number and he's shouting into the phone as he makes his way to the hospital's entrance and he barely hears the numbers whispered back, two thirty-five, and he's running up the stairs and someone must be telling him to stop, but he runs anyway, until he gets to the fourth floor and Cat and Simon are leaning against the glass wall of the ICU, staring at the floor. Martin rushes up to them, mouth open, ready to ask questions, but Simon just glances up and shakes his head once. Martin screeches to a halt in the middle of the hospital's hallway and simply whispers, "no."

He gets the full story out of Simon, that their father had a heart attack at work, that he'd fallen off of his ladder while trying to rewire some ceiling lights, that the woman there had called an ambulance immediately, but between the heart attack and the head injury, there was nothing that could be done, and he's gripping at Martin's shoulders when Martin's kneels buckle a little and Martin buries his face in Simon's shoulder and feels the tickle of Simon's moustache against his forehead as he shakes. Cat doesn't say a word, doesn't move, doesn't even make a sound - she just stares at the floor, eyes occasionally darting from side to side but otherwise motionless. Simon gets Martin to sit on the floor, then sits down next to him, one hand on Martin's knee, gripping tight.

"When?" Martin finally asks, after a long silence.

"At work today–"

"No, _when_?" Martin repeats fiercely. He hates the tears welling in his eyes.

"About half an hour ago," Simon says quietly. "Mum was here, but Caitlin and I… We didn't get here 'til after."

Martin lets out a sob and rests his forehead on his knees. "Mum's still in there?"

Simon nods. "She'll be out soon."

A few moments later, the door of the ICU room slides open and Wendy walks out, jacket clutched in her hand. A couple of nurses go in immediately, sliding the door closed, and Wendy slumps back against the door, rubbing her eyes with one hand.

"Let's go home, Mum," Simon says gently. "The hospital'll call tomorrow." Wendy nods and lets Simon lead her out of the hall and down the stairs. Cat follows, casting a glance at Martin as she walks by, but she doesn't offer to help him up for say anything at all and then she's gone through the doorway too and Martin is left sitting on the floor of the hallway, barely two meters away from his father's corpse. 

He forces himself up eventually and knocks on the door and one of the nurses lets him in. "You Mr. Crieff's son?" she asks.

Martin nods dumbly.

"Yeah, Mrs. Crieff said they 'ad three. You must be Martin, then?"

Another nod. 

"We're about to, ah. Transport him downstairs, but if you wanted to…?"

Martin knows what she means and offers her a small smile of gratitude, then brushes past her to the bed where his father still lays. His body is still, unnervingly so, and there are bandages packed onto the side of his head, but his face is calm, eyes closed and jaw slack, and Martin snorts at himself, for thinking that he almost looks like he's sleeping. He reaches forward with one hand and touches his father's arm, and the flesh is just a little too cool to be normal, the skin just on this side of too dark on the bottoms of his arms and too light on the top, slight purple tinging to faintly blue in his fingers. Martin grips the arm tightly, biting the inside of his lip, and just stares for a moment, memorizing every facet of his father's face because, he realizes, this is the last time he will see this face in person. 

A voice in the back of his mind reminds him that this is better than he ever got with the others.

And then Martin's being ushered out by the quiet words of a nurse, so he kisses his father's cheek, already slightly sunken with time, and turns and walks out of the hospital and does not look back until he's watching the building recede in his rear view mirror.

He makes it to his parents' – his _mother's –_ house, out of the car, and into the sitting room before he breaks down. He can hear Cat in their parents' bedroom, doing the exact same thing.

Wendy makes them all tea, and they huddle in the sitting room and sip it quietly and don't say anything at all for a very long time. 

They leave one by one to go to bed when the sky gets dark, and Wendy slips something into Martin's hand as she passes by him. He glances up at her, but she stares straight ahead and doesn't acknowledge him at all. When he opens his fist, there's a ring, gold and flat and stamped on top and a dozen images of his father's hands flash through his mind before he realizes that this is _his father's signet ring_ , and it's in his hands and he was the one chosen to keep it.

He carefully slides the ring onto the middle finger of his left hand. It feels heavy.

 

11 February, 2006

Simon ties his tie for him in the room outside the reception hall. Martin can hear voices slipping through the crack under the door, and he grimaces as Simon tucks the end of the tie down into his vest, and buttons his suit jacket for good measure. Cat comes in, beautiful in a soft, quiet sort of way, a dark blue dress wrapping around her legs, and Martin realizes that that was the color of their father's eyes and wonders if she meant to do it.

Simon checks his mobile one last time, then tucks it into a pocket in his vest and does up the buttons of his own jacket. "You ready, Martin?"

Martin shakes a little in answer.

"Caitlin?"

She nods shortly. "Mum's in the bathroom, she'll be here in a second."

As if on cue, Wendy slips through the door, closing it firmly behind her. Her eyes are rimmed red, then pale with makeup, and they pretend not to notice. Simon nods to all of them, and then opens the door and they all step out into the church hall and sit down in the front pew.

The pastor comes out and leads a prayer that three of them barely know the words to but Wendy mumbles right along with him, and then they all sit down and the pastor begins his sermon, or whatever people do at funerals, Martin's not even sure anymore, because he can't do anything but stare at the sleek, dark, wooden coffin resting at the front of the room.

Closed casket, Wendy had decided. Martin quietly thanks the deity whose church they're in that he decided to wait back at the hospital.

There are veritable piles of flowers adorning the coffin lid, in whites and reds and pale pinks that Martin knows his father always hated, and he has a strong urge to go throw them away, but Cat, as if sensing his discomfort, reaches over and gently puts one hand on his leg and Martin lets the bleeding heat of her palm ground him again.

After the pastor finishes, Wendy goes up and makes a speech about how she met his father, how he courted her - _courted_ , really, Martin wants to laugh, but somehow it seems to fit better than dating - how they were together for forty-seven years and how he has changed her life beyond her wildest dreams.

Simon goes next, and reads off of a paper that he scribbled out the day before, and then Cat goes up for a very short speech, and then Martin's heart is pounding as he goes up to the podium because he only half knows what he's going to say.

What ends up coming out of his mouth is something completely different.

"I joined the army when I was twenty-four," is what he starts off with. "And before that I wanted to be a pilot. But Dad convinced me that… That serving England was more important."

There are pleased murmurs around the hall at that.

"I was deployed to Afghanistan after those attacks in the States, and in August of 2003, I nearly died in a car bomb explosion," Martin continues.

Silence, now.

He glances nervously around the room, and sees the eyes of every person there staring back at him.

"But I didn't." He swallows hard. "I didn't die there, and I came back home." There's a smattering of applause and one appreciative whistle, but Martin holds his hand up and it all dies away. "It was hard, I won't say it wasn't. But I got through it. Because Dad taught me how to be strong."

It's halfway true, at best. But it comes out anyway.

"And God knows where I'd be right now if not for joining the army five and a half years ago, but he taught me that I'm strong, stronger than I think, and that I can get through watching my mates, my _friends_ , die in front of me…" He swallows again, hard. "And I can get through this too, because he taught me how."

The silence rings in his ears, and he steps away from the podium without any closing words, and rests his left hand on the coffin lid as he passes, the gold ring clicking once against the wood, and then there might be applause, or maybe not. Martin's not really sure.

The rest of the afternoon is a blur, filled with shaking people's hands and thanking everyone who says, "I'm sorry for you loss," until Martin can't deal with any more people, so he slips away into that side room and sits on a bench and rotates the ring on his left middle finger like he can make it stop feeling so heavy.

They walk to the burial site and watch the coffin get lowered into the ground and buried under wet-smelling dirt and padded over with grass, and then Martin goes home and buries himself in flight books.

 

12 February, 2006

He puts in a call for another CPL test.

 

15 February, 2006

The office calls. He doesn't get the job.

 

26 February, 2006

The lawyers have finally finished looking over his father's will, although considering how simple it turns out to be, Martin suspects that they simply forgot about it for a while and then rushed to send it back once they remembered about it. Their mother reads it out to them, all sitting around the dining room table after dinner.

Wendy, predictably, keeps the house, and a good chunk of life insurance money.

Simon gets five thousand pounds, plus some old books, a couple family heirlooms, and a small box that Martin doesn't see the contents of, but it makes Simon tear up a little, so he figures he's best not knowing.

Cat also gets five thousand pounds, and an armful of sketchbooks that she flips through. The pages are full of doodles and comics and Cat clutches them to her chest and murmurs something about stories they made up when she was little.

Martin breathes a quiet sigh of relief that at least his rent will be taken care of for a while, but no money ever comes. Instead he gets… The van. The van, plus whatever's in the van, plus a small box that he'll look at later, but he blinks and asks Wendy to repeat it, and she says the same thing again.

Martin nods slowly and Wendy folds up the paper with some words about calling a couple of other close family members for their share in the will and she goes into the other room and Simon and Cat go to the kitchen to wash the dishes and Martin still sits at the table, staring at the grain in the wood, utterly confused.

He picks up the keys on his way out and drives the van home. He finds a multimeter in the glove compartment when he goes to put his insurance papers in. He laughs, but he doesn't really mean it.

 

23 April, 2006

_Dear Mr. Crieff,_

_We are delighted to inform you that you have passed the Commercial Pilot's License exam._

 

29 April, 2006

"Before you can apply for your ATPL, you'll have to get at least fifteen hundred hours of flying experience and–"

"Trust me, sir, I've got more than enough hours."

 

2 May, 2006

"When you finish your first exam, you can put it on the desk. Good luck, Mr. Crieff. Your time starts now."

 

28 May, 2006

_Dear Mr. Crieff,_

_We are delighted to inform you that you have passed the Airline Transport Pilot License exam._

 

June 19, 2006

Martin checks the diagram on his laptop, then tries for the fifth time to tie his tie properly. Simon had recommended, last time they'd all gone to Wendy's for family dinner, that Martin try a Winsdor knot instead of his usual Four in Hand to make him look "more hirable," so Martin had done an internet search on how to tie a tie and is now sitting in front of a mirror, groaning in frustration.

On the sixth attempt, he makes it look nice enough, although the skinny end is a little too long, but Martin carefully buttons his suit jacket all the way down and it's hidden pretty well.

Martin rechecks his certifications one last time, then tucks them into his pocket, grabs his keys and wallet, and practically runs out the door before he can decide that his hair is too unkept or his tie is due for a seventh attempt.

He recites landing patterns in his head to calm himself down on the drive over, and he gets so caught up going over French airports in the waiting room that he almost misses his name being called.

The interview is long and Martin stumbles over his words more than a few times. The interviewer is impressed with his amount of individual experience right up until he finds out that most of it was from failing his CPL, but Martin takes his license out of his pocket and very deliberately places it on the desk and the man averts his eyes, nods, and moves onto another question.

His written scores are, as usual, nearly flawless.

His simulation scores are, also as usual, mediocre.

His wage requests are very pointedly ignored in favor of writing some notes on a pad of paper.

At the end, the interviewer pushes his notes to the side and holds out his hands. Martin drops his eyes and tries not to sign or look too disappointed as they shake hands. 

"Congratulations, Mr. Crieff."

Martin looks up sharply. "I'm sorry?"

"We're giving you the job, Mr. Crieff," the interviewer says. "If you'll just head out back into the waiting room, someone will be out pretty soon to talk wages and schedules."

"I– yes! Yes! Thank you so much!" Martin can feel his face break out into a grin and his heart pounding in his chest. "Thank you, yes, I'll just… Out there, right." He shakes the interviewer's hand against, then turns and walks, slightly unsteadily, out of the office and back into the waiting room.

When the door to the office closes, Martin glances around to make sure he's alone, then bounces on the balls of his feet and punches the air. He feels like there's electricity in his veins and his heart is racing and his hands are shaking in exhileration instead of panic for once. He fumbles around in his pockets for his phone to call – his mother, his sister, anyone at all – to tell them, but then another door swings open and someone else calls him in and he all but skips to his chair.

Wage negotiations go considerably less well than Martin had hoped they would. He gets utterly scalped – the number he ends up with isn't even enough to pay for his flat – but he's so grateful and so high on adrenaline that he can't even argue very well and really, it hardly matters. It doesn't matter how much he gets paid or where he'll get the extra money for his rent, or even if he has to move back into his parents' house, because he finally gets to fly a plane.

First Officer Martin Crieff.

He grins to himself the whole way home.

 

August, 2006

For all the paperwork and logbooks that he has to fill out, Martin doesn't really get to do anything terribly interesting. Not on the weekends, at least. The weekdays are mostly taken up with pinging around the European Union and taking the second landing because no one seems to trust him to land in a foreign country. But he still relishes it. His pulse still races at the view of England rushing along under him. He still sounds slightly giddy whenever his captain for the day requests that he do the cabin address.

But however enamored he is of his new job, it really doesn't pay for shit. It's something like eleven thousand pounds a year to start of with, under the assumption that many of the starting First Officers are in their early twenties and are not, in fact, thirty-six. It covers most of his rent, but not anything for food, or his phone bill, or anything to put in his rapidly dwindling savings.

Out of desperation, he runs up some fliers and tapes them up on street lamps, advertising himself to help people move. He scrawls "man with a van" across the top and his mobile number underneath. Martin gets a call that night and the compensation they agree on isn't fantastic, but it'll be enough to cover his phone bill for the next month and that's not too bad for one afternoon's work. So he carries boxes in his van for six hours until his arms shake and sweat trickles down his neck, but by the end of the day, he's fifty pounds richer.

He keeps the fliers up and gets a few more calls, until someone asks for his company name and he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind, which is "Icarus Removals, ma'am". She apparently recommends him to some of her friends, because he starts getting calls for Icarus Removals and eventually he goes out and buys some paint and stencils and covers the side of the van with a fresh coat of identity.

His weekends because packed with driving all over England with a van full of boxes, and he barely manages to drag him up the stairs to his attic flat at night, throw his keys on the table by his bed, and pass out in his jeans and jumper, only to be roused at seven in the morning for work at eight thirty. His arms and back ache constantly, and he's perpetually exhausted, dark circles rimming his eyes and he works red-eye flights across the Pacific and cargo flights to Asia and all of the short straws that no one else wanted to pull.

But he things, as he fills out his log book at three seventeen in the morning, that he really has never been happier.

 

January, 2007

It takes a lot of effort to try to stay the happiest he's ever been when he's pulled four night flights to the States in a row, followed by two all-day moves to Nottingham and Wolverhampton, and then another couple of long flights to Africa and then the States again, and Martin is so tired that he's not even sure if he's within legal hours to fly anymore. But he keeps getting assigned flights so he keeps piloting them because his bosses wouldn't schedule him wrong, and around the end of January, he gets to send in proof of his final five hundred hours of multi-pilot operations with a full crew, and the CAA unfreezes his ATPL and Martin can one day dream of calling himself "Captain", though he doubts it will ever happen at this airline. If ever.

Still, the confirmation letter in his box at work brings a bright grin to his face and a kick to his pulse and he spends the whole rest of the day fantasizing about his superiors reporting to _him_ as _their_ commanding officer. It is, in truth, a heady prospect.

Two weeks later, a rumor starts circulating around the pilots' lounge that there are going to be layoffs after a sharp drop in the airline's stock prices. He hears the murmur of "last in, first out" that seems to be company policy, and one senior Captain murmurs to him that the airline is on the decline anyway, and that "you'll look better applying as an employed pilot than as an unemployed one, lad".

So Martin updates his CV and it's still terribly sparse, just this piloting job to add in under his military service and various short-terms jobs to pay the rent and the CPL bills. He thinks for a moment about putting Icarus Removals on the list, but then decides against it. Icarus isn't his job, _flying_ is, and he doesn't want anyone to think any differently.

The month rolls on into February and he hangs on. 

 

March, 2007

He gets his layoff notice at the beginning of March.

It's fortunate, he thinks later, curled up on the floor by the foot of his bed, that he got the news as he was leaving the airfield for the day – he barely managed to drive home before the panic shattered him and he was kneeling on the ground, gasping for air, because this is his _only_ flying job, he hasn't gotten any of the positions he's applied for and he's done half a dozen interviews around southern England (and a couple up north too). By the time the notice comes, he's only got two interviews left. Two more chances.

_You'll look better applying as an employed pilot than as an unemployed one, lad._

The first one crashes and burns. Badly. Martin wakes up from a nightmare twenty-five minutes before he's slated to meet with the interviewer, and he barely makes it to the office on time, hands still shaking from a four year old explosion. He can't settle down enough to answer any of the questions very well, and nearly breaks down again when questioned about his military service. The interviewer looks positively alarmed when Martin leaves, and Martin doesn't even request a time frame for when he should hear back from them because he knows he won't at all.

He has three days left when he interviews at a small airline called MJN. His interviewer is an older, stern-looking woman named Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, and she gives him no time to settle in before she starts firing questions at him. Martin is caught off guard at first and stumbles over the first three or four answers, but he knows, at the very least, that he's doing better than last time.

Carolyn looks distinctly unimpressed with Martin's CV, and only grows more so with each question. About halfway through, she stops taking notes on him, and a little later on, she sets the pen down entirely, and Martin feels like he's back in primary school again, when he forgot to turn in his homework and his teacher stared him down until he wanted to cry.

He's unaware of the growing panic in his stomach until Carolyn says, "thank you, Mr Crieff," with such an air of finality that Martin blurts out, "I'll do it for half."

Carolyn freezes, then slowly turns around to look at him again. "What?"

"Whatever you gave the last guy," Martin breathes. "I'll take half his wage."

Carolyn tilts her head to the side a little, and the glint in her eyes reminds Martin of a shark. he shrinks back in his chair a little and Carolyn grins a rather unsettling grin and leans in over the desk. "A third."

"No. That's ridiculous."

"Then by all means, the door is behind you."

Martin frowns. "What's a third, then?"

"Not enough to make a living on," Carolyn admits. "But neither is half, and you were willing to take that, so clearly money isn't the issue here anymore." Martin suddenly feels the need to cross his arms or button his jacket or _something_ to make him feel like Carolyn isn't staring right through him. "Do you have any other income besides your First Officer position? You neglected to mention on your CV."

"Well…" Martin sighs. "Yeah, if you must know, I've got a sort of moving service on the side… But that's not my real job!" he adds hurriedly. "My real job is as a First Officer." Or was, anyway. "The moving thing is just on the side."

"But you _do_ have a second income," Carolyn muses. "I will tell you what, Mr. Crieff. I need a First Officer and you want to fly. I will hire you for a quarter, no questions asked."

"What's a quarter?" Martin asks cautiously. 

Carolyn looks something up in a file, then writes a number on a slip of paper and slides it over. Martin picks it up and blanches – this is way less than rent. Less than his last job, even.

But it's still an opportunity.

"Are you sure you can't go any higher?" Martin asks. He sounds desperate and he knows it and he hates it.

"I'm afraid that this is my final offer," Carolyn says. Her eyes soften a little. "This is what I can offer you. You may take it or leave it."

Martin sighs and he knows there's only one smart thing to say to a wage that small, but he needs flying more than he needs anything else, so there's really only one answer he's able to give.

"I'll take it."

He signs the paperwork there in the office, takes down his license numbers and agrees to the measly wages he's got to live on now and Carolyn tucks the paper away and tells him he starts on a cargo flight to Turkey next Wednesday. Martin nots and turns to leave, and he hears her murmuring something to herself about "Douglas" and "promotion" and "insufferable" and he's just closed the door to the office when she calls him back in. "Mr Crieff!"

Martin pokes his head back through the door. "Yes, Ms. Knapp-Shappey?"

The shark look is back in Carolyn's eyes as she asks, "how little would you take to be captain?"

It feels like the bottom has dropped out of Martin's body. "Excuse me?"

"I could, quite possibly, find a scenario that would allow you to be hired as Captain," Carolyn offers by way of explanation. "You do have your ATPL, do you not?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Frozen?"

"No, unfrozen."

"Then I could hire you as a Captain. Or would you not want that?"

"No, of course, I… I've always wanted to be an airline Captain," Martin admits. "Ever since I was a boy."

"Excellent, that's settled then," Carolyn says briskly. "So how little would you take for it?"

"Couldn't you just hire me as Captain for the same wage as hiring me as First Officer?" Martin asks. "Either way, it's saving you money."

"Ah, but Mr. Crieff, this is my quid pro quo. I am offering to hire you as Captain, although I do not have to. So what are you going to do for me?"

"I don't… I don't know," Martin says slowly. "What do you want?"

"Well, between you and me, Mr. Crieff…" She motions for him to sit down. He does. "This company is not exactly renowned for its money-making ventures. So what I want is to pay you as little as possible and still have you stay on."

"That's very blunt of you," Martin says.

"Comes with the territory of being the CEO," Carolyn replies. "So think about it, Mr. Crieff. What would you do to be an airline captain?"

"I'd do anything," Martin blurts out without thinking. But no matter how stupid it was to say (and it was tremendously stupid) Martin can't actually think of anything he wouldn't do to be allowed to captain an aeroplane.

Carolyn looks gleeful.

Martin still doesn't expect the next thing she says.

"Nothing?!" He repeats, eyes wide. "You want me to take on a job – a _Captain's_ position, no less – for no wage at all."

"To be quite honest with you, no one _really_ wants to pay their employees. It's just that they _have_ to," Carolyn says. "And I know you're not flying for the money. You're flying for the passion of flying. So think of it this way: you'll be the commanding officer on my plane. You'll get to fly every job if you so choose. You'll have another job to put on your to be quite honest pitiful CV." She reaches into her desk and pulls out a new contract. "Is all that worth taking a contract without wage for?"

Martin stares blankly at her.

"Take your time," Carolyn says pleasantly.

He stares at the paper in her hands and he turns it over an over in his mind. It's completely mad, and he knows it's completely mad, and stupid besides, and he would _never_ hear the end of it from his family, and he doubts he could make a living off of Icarus if his schedule at MJN is anything like at his last job.

But to be Captain of an airline, after thirty-odd years of dreaming about it…

He has nothing to go back to. Without flying, he has nothing. Without flying, he had a job at Tesco while waiting to be ordered on duty, and that is one thing that Martin will never, ever go back to.

He snatches the contract form Carolyn's hands, scrawls a zero in the 'wages' box, fills in his license numbers again, and signs his name, then hands the contract back to her before he can come to his senses.

Carolyn grins like it's Christmas come early. "Welcome to MJN, Captain."

_Captain._

Captain Martin Crieff.

Stupid, idiotic, penurious, _Captain_ Martin Crieff.

 

15 May, 2007

It's a flight to Canada, and a fairly stupid one at that. MJN gets chartered to fly a businessman to Toronto to make a deal, and it takes three days out of their lives to fly over, drive a nervous Mr. Turner to the offices, drive a much more celebratory Mr. Turner back to the hotel at nine at night, and take off back toward England. Martin spends most of his time wandering around Toronto's busier streets, and picks up some postcards for his mum, because he knows Wendy likes postcards from all the places he goes.

He operated out, so he doesn't have much to do when they pour a (still very celebratory but rather hung over) Mr. Turner into the cabin. He does the walk around and runs the checks and Douglas rolls his eyes at every turn, but Martin just stares straight ahead and checks the fuel balance for the third time.

Takeoff is fine, and Douglas suggests another game, which consists of visiting a country for every letter, which goes well until they get to X and eventually give up any hopes of ever going to Yemen or Zimbabwe. Clouds roll in beneath them the closer and closer they get to England, and a notice about possible icing comes on. 

"Uh, Douglas, potential ice on starboard wing," Martin says, watching the tiny warning light flash.

"Oh, come on, it'll be fine," Douglas says. He waves one hand at the control panel. "Gertie's always acting up like this, I'm sure it's nothing."

"I really think we should divert," Martin presses. "Ice on the wings is always dangerous, especially when we have to land. We're about two hundred kilometers out from Ireland, and then it's still another five hundred to Fitton. Let's just divert to Cork Airport, or the Farranfore, and get it checked out."

"Martin, that's ridiculous," Douglas says, turning over his shoulder to stare at him. "It's just a bit of ice, and you know that we're not in the most dangerous of conditions for ice anyway. Dry sun's where you've got to be most concerned, and clearly, we're not anywhere near dry sun."

"It's protocol, Douglas! It's protocol to radio in an emergency when your wings are freezing off!"

Douglas rolls his eyes dramatically. "It's _fine_ , Martin. You've given me this sector and I'm in control of it. Gertie is _fine_." Martin feels his pulse thrumming far too fast in his neck. His face feels hot and sweat pricks at the back of his neck. Douglas furrows his brow a little. "Martin?"

"You're going to kill us," Martin says hoarsely. "You're supposed to land, Douglas, and ask for assistance, you're supposed to land the bloody plane when your wings are iced over, and you're going to kill us."

Douglas lets out a sharp bark of laughter. "Are you mad? It's just a bit of ice! You don't even have to land the thing, Martin. I'll show you, it's _fine_."

The last sentence echoes around in Martin's mind, and his whole body freezes for a moment. Douglas looks confused, but Douglas isn't really here anymore, because the plane is sand and dry heat and Douglas reaches over and flips a switch on the control panel and it triggers the bomb like they knew it would and the plane is torn apart like the metal frame of a car in Balkh and Martin can feel his vocal cords straining as he screams, flinging himself back because this time, there's no body to shield him from the shrapnel. This time he gets the full brunt of the explosion and sharp points of pain explode all over his arms, his chest, his face. He digs at his arms to free them from the metal, and there's a strange weight on his chest that he can't see, loud noises that he can't decipher, but it doesn't matter, because he's going to die in this desert in Afghanistan, just like he always knew he would.

He comes to tucked in the corner of the flight deck, wrapped up in something warm, and very alone. Martin cracks one eye open, then blinks a few times as he adjusts to the overhead lights. Douglas is gone, and for one terrifying second, he wonders who's flying the plane, but then he sees the lines of the landing strip and relief courses through him. He recognizes this airport - Kerry Airport, the Farranfore, one of his old airline's favorite destinations for refueling because it's right on the west edge of the Republic. The name is emblazoned in stenciled letters across the building they've landed next to and Martin feels another wave of tension leave his body.

He struggles a little to push out from under whatever he's wrapped in, but once it's lying on the floor, he recognizes it at Douglas's uniform jacket. His own is somewhere else, probably draped over the Captain's seat, and his shirtsleeves are torn and a little red around the ripped edges. Martin sighs and rolls his sleeves up to the elbow, and he's not surprised to see dark, angry scratch marks all over his skin again. 

He slowly becomes aware of shouting coming from the cabin, but whether it's new or something that's been going on a while, Martin is not entirely sure. He rolls his sleeves back down and buttons the cuffs as best he can with shaking fingers, then staggers upright and lurches over to the control panel. His jacket is folded up in the seat, just as he thought, so he pulls it on and does the buttons up and tugs the sleeves forward just enough that he can't see the tears in his shirt anymore.

The arguing gets louder until the door bursts open, and Carolyn is in his space immediately, pointing at the airfield like he hasn't seen it before. "Did you agree to this?"

"Did I…?" Martin repeats blankly. 

"To diverting to Kerry for the smallest of reasons?" Carolyn's face has gone blotchy red with anger, and Martin, alarmed, takes a step back. "Tell me that this was not your decision, Martin, because I swear on your life and the eight thousand pounds this is costing us–"

"It was my decision, Carolyn," Douglas says suddenly. Martin whirls around to see him standing in the doorway to the galley, sleeves rolled up like Martin's were and sweating a little. "The Captain had given me that sector and I was well within my rights as your pilot to land if I believed there was an emergency, which I did."

Carolyn turns away from Martin to start screaming at Douglas instead, and Martin kind of fades in and out between Douglas's calm explanations of emergency weather conditions - which he has no evidence of whatsoever - and Carolyn's screechy accusations of bankruptcy of her company and descriptions of Mr. Turner's apparent fury and promises to take this landing fee out of Douglas's paycheck. Douglas bears it all with a stony, unchanging expression, and once the weather "emergency" has been cleared, he flies the rest of the way to Fitton without speaking one unnecessary word to Martin.

It suits Martin just fine. He probably couldn't speak for himself if he wanted to.

 

18 May, 2007

He's sitting in the pilot's lounge, reading the news on his phone, when a cup of coffee suddenly appears in front of him. Martin glances up sharply, then follows the column of dark blue up to broad shoulders up to Douglas's face. Douglas nods and pulls his hand away and says, "I think you may owe me a bit of an explanation."

(It's their first trip after the Toronto Incident, as Martin comes to call it, even though it happened closer to Ireland than to Canada, but the 'hovering over the Atlantic Ocean' incident doesn't sound as good so he'll keep using Toronto. Martin had gone home immediately after the shut-down checks and locked himself in his shower and sat on the floor, cleaning off his scratches until he got lost in himself again and made them deeper instead. He spent the next full day in bed, and the day after that doing a moving job in London, which is easy but for the obscene traffic in the capital literally all of the time, and now he's back at the airfield, dreading his next flight for the first time in his life.)

"I suppose I do," Martin says, sighing heavily. 

Douglas sits down next to him, and Martin sips at his coffee. It's well made, with the right amount of sugar. He hums his thanks and takes another deep gulp. The burn in his throat is welcome.

"In your own time, then," Douglas nudges. 

Martin sighs again. "Well, if you must know…" He sips at his coffee once more, then sets it down. "When I was younger, a few years back, I was in the army. Signed up when I was twenty-five or something, didn't think anything of it at the time."

"You don't seem like the army sort," Douglas says lightly.

Martin snorts. "Yes, well, I wasn't, really. But by that time I'd already failed my CPL five times and was in a bit of debt and my parents, they were furious, especially my dad…" He clears his throat. "And he thought I should do something with my time that was more productive than wasting thousands of pounds trying to do something… Something he never believed I was going to do."

Douglas nods. Martin suspects he doesn't actually know what to say.

"So I applied for the RAF and they didn't let me in, big surprise, but the man, Carter I think, he said I was good at following orders and I'd be good in the army. So I joined the army."

"And the thought of ice reminded you of it?"

Martin shoots Douglas a glare, and Douglas has the good manners to look chastened. "No, tosser. In August, in 2003, we were on patrol, I was deployed in this city in Afghanistan called Balkh and we were on patrol around the edges of the city, just finishing up for the night and we found a car bomb." He feels Douglas stiffen a little beside him and he takes a long swig of coffee to soothe his suddenly dry throat. "And we radioed in backup, like you're supposed to do, and we waited, and they never showed up, until this one guy in my unit, Steve, he just… Decided to do it himself."

"He decided to disarm a car bomb by himself?" Douglas questions.

"No, he decided that he was going to show us that it was fine," Martin says. "That he was going to drive it out of the city lines so that it wouldn't be our problem anymore. He said it was fine, and I– we tried to make him stop, but he wouldn't listen to protocol, he didn't listen when we told him he was going to kill us all. He didn't think he was going to die–" he cuts himself off as his voice cracks. Douglas's hand had at some point found its way to his shoulder and it squeezes gently now. "The explosion killed three of them instantly, and one more in hospital afterwards. Jack, he got out, went back to join our unit after a month or so, but me…" He shrugs helplessly. "I couldn't get back in. I couldn't get out of my head. So they gave me a discharge and sent me home."

"And that's what you saw back in the flight deck," Douglas says quietly.

It's not a question, but Martin nods anyway. "Yeah."

Douglas doesn't seem to have an answer for that.

They sit quietly for a while, drinking coffee until the cups are empty and they don't have an out anymore so they just sit for a while longer, until Douglas shatters the silence and says, "I'm sorry."

Martin shrugs, mostly out of habit. "You didn't know."

"No, I didn't. But that doesn't mean I made the right decision."

Martin shrugs again, in agreement this time. "Not really, no." He offers Douglas a shy smily. "What did you tell Carolyn?"

Douglas groans and leans back in his seat. "Oh, God, I don't even remember. Something about weather conditions. Told her there was a storm incoming and that we were better off diverting than trying to fly around it for such a short distance."

"Did she go for it?"

Douglas chuckles. "Not if the thousand pounds missing from this month's pay statement is anything to go by."

"Douglas, I am sorry–"

Douglas holds up his hands. "Don't apologize. It's not like you meant for us to land in Ireland or anything." 

Martin opens his mouth to protest, but laughter comes out instead, strange and unsettled laughter that makes Douglas laugh too and suddenly they're both laughing about Kerry and airports and flashbacks and can't stop until Carolyn comes marching over to do the briefing and clips them both upside the head.

Martin operates out again, a full passenger flight to southern Spain for a wedding. He catches Douglas's eye out of the corner of his and Douglas nods. "Approaching thirty-five thousand feet, Captain."

"Thank you, Douglas."

"Of course, oh sir of sirs."

It's not perfect.

But he'll take it.

**Author's Note:**

> I've done a moderate amount of research about military wages and procedures for getting CPLs and ATPLs, but I absolutely do not claim that this is accurate, nor do I have any idea how people conduct enlistment meetings or job interviews for airlines. So there's a disclaimer.


End file.
